


The Garden of Stepping Stones

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Daddy Castiel, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fallen Castiel, Family, Family Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Gardener Castiel, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Human Castiel, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Mindless Fluff, POV Castiel, Parents Castiel & Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years after becoming human, Castiel shares a home with Dean and their little girl, Mary Joanna. Even Sam has a wife and two children of his own. The brothers still hunt together, less often of course, but little Mary is beginning to ask questions. She's heard that Castiel's meticulous garden is a memorial to all of the people they lost before she was born, so he decides it's time to properly teach her about every flower and family member.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden of Stepping Stones

"Uncle Sam said you chased bees, Daddy," a little mouth said with her nose crinkled in disbelief. "Bees are yucky. They sting."

Castiel smiled as he pointed the snake of a green garden hose at the white rose bushes. "Bees have a purpose," he explained. "They help flowers make new flowers and they make the honey you like on your rolls. Everything in nature has a purpose even if it's  _yucky_."

"Nu-uh, Daddy, the squeezy teddy bear squirts the honey!"

"Where did the squeezy teddy bear get the honey?" He peered down at his five-year-old child as she sat in the grass with her Barbie dolls.

"Magic," she replied matter-of-factly.

"Magic," Castiel repeated to himself, a faint smirk at her intuition.

The little girl retreated into her imaginary world with her dolls as her father watered his yard. Castiel had been human for eight years and planted the first seeds the minute he and Dean bought the house. A year later, a surrogate gave birth to a tiny six pound baby girl, not knowing she was fathered by a man who had once been a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. They knew nothing about the baby's mother other than she was an egg donor with light brown hair, green eyes, and freckles. Dean gave Castiel biological fatherhood so long as the mother had his coloring.

And so, little baby Mary Joanna Winchester came home with Daddy and Papa five years ago, a perfect mixture of both. Heavy dark hair curled around her shoulders and hazel eyes looked as if they couldn't decide whether to be blue or green. She had Castiel's know-it-all kind of intelligence and Dean's impulsive behavior.

Soon Mary was joined by Robert and Ellie, children born to Sam and his wife, a woman who Dean referred to as the boring librarian. Castiel knew the younger Winchester found his match though.

"Daddy, when's Papa coming home?"

"In a few days." Castiel yanked the hose and moved to a patch of multicolored tulips along the front walkway.

"What's he doing?"

"Very important work. He's a hero."

Mary had one of her Barbies act out a cartwheel. She was highly interested in gymnastics those days. "Like Batman?"

Castiel threw a glance over his shoulder, squinting at his little girl. "He let you watch that movie, didn't he?"

"Yeah. The Joker's scary." A wide, toothy grin shined up at him.

"I'm sure Uncle Sam would agree with you." He made a mental note to enforce the rules about what movies Mary was allowed to watch. Sometimes Dean required as much supervision as their child.

Hopping to her feet, Mary trotted across the yard with her green skirt bouncing around her knees. She appeared at Castiel's side and leaned over the tulips. Occasionally, the flowers held her attention for a few minutes, but they didn't have the allure of her toys or singing, dancing animals in Disney movies.

"Know what Uncle Sam said?"

"What?"

She reached up on her tiptoes and cupped her pudgy hand over her mouth. Castiel stooped from his six foot height and let her whisper to him. "The flowers are  _people_."

"The flowers are people?" What the hell had Sam been telling his baby? "Oh! I think you mean the flowers are _memorials_ to people."

"I dunno, Daddy, but Uncle Sam said they're really 'portant. I shouldn't walk on them, sit on them, throw Barbies in them, let Roo tinkle or poopoo in them..." Her almond shaped hazel eyes turned to the sky as she counted the rules on her fingers.

"Yes," Castiel chuckled, "that's right. Come here." The former angel wound up his hose and dropped it on the walkway. Hands outstretched, he picked up his daughter and balanced her on his hip. "Some of our flowers are memorials and some of them mark important times in our life together."

"What's a memorial?"

Castiel strolled leisurely across the yard with his little girl in his arms as he considered the best way to explain it. "Remember when Sunny, your goldfish, went to Heaven? If we planted a flower for him, every time we looked at it, we would think of him. That's a memorial."

"All these people went to Heaven too?" Her wide eyes scanned various flowerbeds and bushes beautifully framing their two-story white house with green shutters.

He knelt before a patch of blue irises mixed with red poppies, and positioned little Mary on his thigh. "These are for your great-grandmother, Deanna, and your great-grandfather, Samuel. And over there--" He pointed to an arrangements of honeysuckle bushes, daffodils and violets along the fence. "The white ones are for you, the yellow ones are for me, and the blue ones are for Papa. I planted those when we all became a family."

"The smelly ones are mine?" Mary's pink lips opened, delighted.

"They smell like a girl - sweet and full of perfume." He kissed her cheek, unable to resist the plumpness.

Standing, he carried her close to his chest and gave her a proper tour of the garden, which was, to him, a constant work in progress. The multicolored tulips along the walkway each memorialized angels lost over the years, though he merely told his daughter that they had been his friends. Along the opposite fence planted more honeysuckle, daffodils, and violets. He walked with Mary around the side of the house to the gate leading to the back yard. A lazy basset hound, Roo, lifted his head, only mildly interested as he sat in his doghouse.

Rose bushes bordered various portions of the back yard fence. Each color represented another person, he explained to his daughter, who listened with rapt attention.

Castiel gave extra attention to white and red roses at the center of the rear fence. "This white one is for your grandmother, Mary. This red one is for your grandfather, John." As he moved down the line to pale and deep shades of pink, he considered how to explain them. "Ellen and Jo were like your other grandmother and aunt." And to the rare blue rose, he said, "This one is for Bobby. He was like your other grandfather."

"How many grampas and grammas do I have?" Mary squealed, her little arm tightly wrapped around the back of his neck.

A soft, reflective smile creased his full lips. "A lot of people loved your Papa enough to help him have us." It was all he could say, really. Eight years of being a human man and sometimes he still got tangled up in webs of emotions that defied understanding.

A lot of people  _did_ love Dean enough to make the ultimate sacrifice for his life. Every flower in Castiel's garden represented a stepping stone toward the ending Dean never knew he needed of a settled life in Kansas. A home. Enough self-acceptance to live in the open with a man he loved so intensely that they died for each other more than once. A beautiful little girl. Plans to have another child the next year. Weekend barbecues with Sam and his wife, all of their babies playing together on Mary's jungle gym. And yet, Dean still hunted. Castiel remained at home just as Sam's wife remained at home, while the Winchester brothers made the universe safer one monster at a time.

Play dates. Holidays. Hunting things. The family business.


End file.
